


GLASS

by FlowersAndViscera



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Coming of Age, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowersAndViscera/pseuds/FlowersAndViscera
Summary: They learned to look at each other through the camera’s lens.





	GLASS

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrommyProm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrommyProm/gifts).



“Smile!”

“What the…have you ever heard of privacy before?”

“Nope. Sounds fancy. Is it part of the royal protocol?”

“Wait until I’m king and it will be.”

“Am I okay to keep the pictures of you shirtless until then? I think I got a rare glimpse at the crown jewels while you were bending over.”

“This better be deleted by the time I count to three.”

“Dude, your math is so bad I’ll be in Accordo by the time you remember what comes after two.”

“Says the one who failed his algebra class.”

“At least I wasn’t caught calculating the Nadirean Theorem by counting on my fingers!”

“Pretty sure bringing this up is treason.”

“You’ll have to pry my freedom of speech from my cold, dead hands, Your Majesty.”

“Come back here and I can make that wish come true. And it’s Highness, still.”

 

They learned to look at each other through the camera’s lens. The glass kept them separated at a safe distance and Prompto, for one, was content to keep things that way. He was used to hiding behind clumsiness and humour. His real self was already wrapped in so many layers of well-meaning deception, that he sometimes doubted its very existence. 

Back when they first met, he didn’t have the gall to take photos of anyone other than himself. He collected pictures from magazines, clippings from newspapers, the commemorative posters released for the prince’s twelfth birthday, the postcards of his royal portrait. Eleven-year-old Prompto wished he could arrange them on his wall, but instinct warned him against it. No words existed on his tongue back then to describe the emotions of joy and longing that had began to stir inside him alongside the first tendrils of puberty. Shame did its job, though, so he knew to keep his scrapbook hidden and his heart even more so; tucked away in a box, under Luna’s perfumed letter. Only his own photos were allowed in plain sight. He would tape them next to the mirror while he examined his body, sucking in his stomach where the smallest amount of baby fat continued to cling. One day he would be worthy, he kept telling himself, not knowing when that day would come or how he would get there.

His confidence and self-esteem were unchanged over time, but he found that the less space he took, the easier things became to hide. A young man was beginning to emerge from the chrysalis of the child he had once been. Prompto wasn’t sure if he liked his new self better, but others seemed to. People praised his smile, so he learned to fake it until it looked real. By age fifteen, he had coaxed himself into becoming the classroom clown, eliciting rounds upon rounds of laughter whenever he put on his goofy charms, right before retreating to the bathrooms with a crushing wave of anxiety and the urge to vomit everything he had ever eaten. He would borrow his mannerisms from TV idols and animated characters, wrapping himself in fashionable threads and trends and bones until none of his old inner child remained visible. He wanted to be enough, but after a while, he wasn’t sure what the word even meant anymore. 

Only once did he stop to wonder if Noctis would ever gaze upon what Prompto saw in his own naked reflection. He traced the silvery lines across his abdomen with a finger, then a tingle in his chest warned him about nurturing futile hopes. So he pushed the thought away and snapped another progress selfie. Beneath his clothes, his body continued to disappear, leaving behind it loose skin and stretch marks. Battle scars, he would think to himself, though he had no idea whom he was even fighting.

From a corner of his desk, Luna’s voice continued to echo, _I heard the prince is taking all his breaks alone._ Had it not been for her gentle encouragement, for the dignified pleas disguised between the loops of her left-leaning cursive, Prompto would never have gotten near. _Be his friend,_ she had asked him. _Remain ever at his side._ Yet even in childhood, Prompto knew that he wasn’t made to stand next to royalty. All he could do was pretend, for her sake. Her future fiancé was slowly wasting to loneliness. 

Prompto gave her his word and in due time his camera was filled with evidence of that promise; there was the crown prince of Lucis with ice cream on his nose, with a smile like a misshapen potato, caught in an awkward pose that would never fit in a glossy editorial. Prompto kept them all, to contrast the polished image of the royal heir with the clumsy boy he had grown to know. Noctis had no choice but to wear his tender heart on his sleeve. His best friend's facade, though, never faltered. Prompto knew where to bury his feelings and not once did they unearth themselves. Not when girls started approaching him for gossip about the prince, nor when the two of them sat together to shift through the piles of cards and chocolate said prince received for Lover’s Day.

Amongst them was Prompto’s card too, a joke that Noctis laughed through his nose at. Prompto’s messy handwriting was too obvious, his message of eternal devotion as silly as one could make it. Noctis bought him some cheap flowers in return and the two of them took a bunch of mocking selfies. He kissed Noctis on the cheek in the last one, without warning, just to capture his grossed-out expression. They texted the photo to Ignis Scientia’s personal number with _scandal_ scribbled around it and a bunch of heart-shaped stickers. Noctis phoned him the next day to say he had found it printed and framed in gold on his bedroom wall. Prompto was in his pyjamas, bathed in the warm light of a Saturday morning, laughing until he began to snort. They both failed to mention that kiss was their first. 

Behind the camera lens they were both safe. Prompto could look at the prince without that old stutter creeping into his voice. He could keep asking Noctis to make poses and pull faces while secretly wondering how it would feel to hold hands for real, to sit a bit closer on the bench, to shift a few inches to the left and let their mouths brush together. Truth was, he never felt enough. The word never gained its expected meaning, but somehow Prompto had found himself in a place where their shoulders could touch without either of them pulling away. 

From there he could see that Noctis, too, had a few freckles on his nose and chapped lips that he didn’t take care of, despite the three flavours of lip balm that Ignis kept sneaking into his coat pocket. Prompto could see where a button was coming loose on the prince’s school jacket, where the back of his neck flushed pink in the middle of a hot summer day. On his upper lip, the faintest hint of dark hair was beginning to show. When Noctis loosened his tie, Prompto could smell his deodorant; a mix of citrus and salt, blended with the scent of his skin. He would remember all that, much later, while alone in his bed, and kick off his blankets. The room would be unbearable--suffocating--not due to the weather, but due to the weight of denial growing heavy on his chest. He would roll on his front and hug his pillow, falling asleep next to the chocobo plush Noctis had won at the arcades when they last skipped class. He had traced the prince’s steps until the two of them were on the doorstep to adulthood. And yet, Prompto was still a peasant, watching from the margins, looking without daring to touch.

Four years later, they are asleep in a trailer and Prompto is watching his friend’s face at rest. Noctis is bare from the waist up, his chest marked with newly healed scars. Despite the open window, the atmosphere is thick with the smell of potions and stale sweat. They had began to share a bed out of necessity before it became habit. Gladio would always take the sofa due to his size, and Ignis had long decided he was too protective about his personal space to sleep tangled in a mass of lanky limbs. With his glasses folded neatly at arm’s length, he took to the floor in his sleeping bag. And now the rain continues to fall outside while, indoors, laundry is drying on every available surface. Noctis moves restlessly, his body too exposed under the thin fabric of his boxers. Not that there were any secrets left between them. After sharing wounds and showers and sleeping spaces for weeks, after overhearing one another masturbate at least once, their bodies held none of the dignity afforded to those outside their brotherhood.

Noctis is his brother. That’s what Prompto keeps telling himself while rest evades him for another night. The swell of his arousal grows painful and so does the hammering of conscience in his ears. At age twenty, he knows well enough that his attraction to girls is not all there is. When the conversation had come up, however, cowardice won.

“Guys? Nah, Iggy is the one with the adventurous taste buds around here. I’m all vanilla. Big boobs and a cute smile.”

“With such simplistic demands, how come Gladio’s ample bosom hasn’t enticed you yet?”

“Too hairy.”

“Waxing not good enough for you?”

“I was talking about your smile. The beard kinda ruins it.”

Their attention eventually turned to Noctis and the prince shrugged. He didn’t care for these things. Never had. He shook his head at the rest of them with a mild disgust that betrayed his lack of experience.

“Please, I’m an engaged man.”

That same opaque expression is now scrawled along his tired face as he turns, half-awake, to look at Prompto over his shoulder. 

“Can’t sleep?” 

“With your snoring? Who can?”

“I don’t snore.”

“My throbbing head is saying otherwise, buddy.”

“Well, whatever, I’m awake now thanks to your fidgeting.”

“Cool, wanna put some clothes on to hide your wood and play King’s Knight?”

“You are the one with the bunched up blanket on his crotch.”

“Not guilty unless proven otherwise.”

“It’s also 3 am.”

“Is that the sound of you cowering before my four-star team?”

“Who’s the prince here?”

“The one who lost five times in a row last night.”

“Fine! You are on! Throw me my jeans.”

The bed squeaks with their movements, old springs that had seen more summers than all the boys combined straining under the irritation and the excitement. Their whispers grow louder without them realising. They rise above the muttering of the rain as they scramble for clothes, until Noctis bangs his head on the steel frame with a muffled cry.

“Whoa man, are you gonna live?”

“No, I’m afraid you’ll have to marry Luna in my stead.”

“Guess it can’t be helped. She can have my plebian body. Anything for my liege.”

“Splendid,” they are broken up by Ignis’s stern voice from below. “Now if the two of you could take this trifle outside so that the rest of us mortals can catch up with our sleep schedule, I would be most grateful.”

They tumble out of bed, laughing as always, and Prompto tells himself things are fine the way they are. They wrestle each other out of the door and into their clothes. Prompto takes a playful bite on his friend’s hip before getting caught in a headlock and having his hair messed up beyond repair.

“That’s 300 gil worth of salon product you just wasted there!”

“How about you wash it and re-apply the stuff instead? You stink of chocobo and we left the ranch three days ago.”

“Iggy will kill me if I use up the hot water and I’m already in his black books after this.”

“Let’s go in together then.”

“To quote a certain someone, have you ever heard of privacy before?”

“It’s part of the royal protocol. But what happens on the road stays on the road.”

“Don’t let the paparazzi overhear that or your engagement is over, pal.”

“Maybe that’s what I want.”

Maybe there is a grain of truth in that. The shower is small, a tiny cubicle wedged behind the trailer with temperamental pipes and slippery walls. Noctis doesn’t even flinch in his nudity while they take turns washing each other’s back. The sunrise filters through the thin plastic which separates them from the rest of the world, and Prompto feels dizzy. He has rehearsed his confession many times, but once the rose golden rays of the Leide morning cascade upon Noctis’s spine, Prompto’s very notion of language collapses. He pictures himself smearing kisses across that delicate flesh and his heart is beating so fast he cannot hear anything else around him. 

He doesn’t know it yet, but somewhere far away, in the not so distant future, Ardyn Izunia’s voice is caressing the ether. _Will you tell the prince about your crush, or should I man up and tell him for you?_

Time will soften everything into a distant echo. Ten years later, he will be looking at old photos with a borrowed cigarette between his lips. He will be scrolling through that same old phone, deleting leftover data from the games they used to play together, now rendered useless after the servers shut down. He’ll be savouring the bitter taste of smoke and regret, as he comes to accept their entire relationship was mediated through glass; screens, camera lenses, an invisible barrier placed there by Prompto himself. When Noctis comes back he'll be on par with the gods, lost to the distance, untouchable. By the time they meet again, Prompto will have already mourned the kisses they didn’t share, the lovemaking they didn’t have. His awkward friend will blossom into the King of Light as the world surrounding him withers and any chance to grow closer has long since passed. With the last of that frightened overweight boy fading away, Prompto will bow at the Citadel steps and refuse to let his tears fall. That love confession will die unspoken between them and Noctis will walk up the steps to his own death without looking back.


End file.
